This is the first in a new series called “What It’s Like” where we at The Bold Italic tell you what a place is actually like. Based on our own experiences and those of our readers.
- Cinderella Bakery: 436 Balboa Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, Inner Richmond. Open daily, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (415) 751-9690.
- Order the pelmeni in chicken broth, the beef piroshki, and the rye. Don’t skip the bread.
Cinderella Bakery began as a story about leaving twice. In 1953, two sisters, Lydia Repin and Eugenia Belonogoff, opened a Russian bakery on Balboa Street after arriving in San Francisco from Harbin, China. They were part of a migration most San Franciscans have never heard of: Russians who fled the 1917 revolution east into Manchuria, into a Russian railway city that was already there, and then had to leave a second time when China's revolution caught up with them.
Seventy-three years later Cinderella is still at 436 Balboa, still making the same things. The counter today holds piroshki, pelmeni, borscht, poppy seed rolls, vatrushka, Napoleon and honey cake, dark chewy rye. Plus, the bakery says, one of the Bay Area's only homemade kvases, the tangy fermented grain drink.
How to get there
The 31-Balboa stops at Balboa and 6th, which puts you roughly at the door. So does the 44-O'Shaughnessy, at 6th and Balboa, and the 44 runs 24 hours, which the 31 does not. If you're coming on the 38-Geary or the 5-Fulton you're two flat blocks away. Golden Gate Park is two blocks south, which the bakery itself treats as part of the pitch: grab a bag of piroshki and keep walking.
What it’s like
Inside, it's counter service. You order and pay at the register and the food comes out to you. Seating is tight, the parklet adds a handful of tables, and weekends draw a line. Cramped seating is the complaint that recurs most often across review sites and comment threads.
I’ve personally been many times and agree with the cramped comments. The location is busy and small, but quite honestly, it’s not that hard to get a table outside. The weather is a surprisingly pleasant microclimate. Personally, I love the Borscht and a broccoli side they serve. And the bread that comes with most meals is fucking phenomenal.
What people say
Across roughly 1,600 Yelp reviews, the dishes people name over and over are the pelmeni in chicken broth, the beef piroshki, and the rye. And when The Bold Italic posted about Cinderella on Facebook, the comments turned into an oral history.
Tim Clow described a room that no longer quite exists: "My grandmother would take us there on Saturdays. On special occasions there was always somebody who had a bottle of vodka and little drinks were poured and the bottle put back in a sack."
Susanna Townsend's grandmother was part of that same circle: "part of the group of original immigrant patrons who would meet there weekly and reminisce speaking only Russian… I loved going there with her and hearing their stories and eating variniki & pelminis."
Tammy Newell remembers the older configuration: a little restaurant tucked inside the bakery, a seamstress, "the best hard black current candy and the best poppyseed pastry." Kit McKnight lived a few blocks away in the Inner Richmond: "I so admired my Russian neighbors and friends. They were warm and appreciative."
The future of Cinderella
A second Cinderella is coming at 2937 24th Street in the Mission, in the space La Victoria Bakery vacated in 2018 (La Victoria itself is alive and well a few blocks east at 3249 24th). The renovation permit was signed off in late July; the bakery had aimed to open by the end of summer and hadn't yet as of press time. Check their Instagram before you make the trip.
Cinderella Bakery & Café · 436 Balboa St., San Francisco · Daily 7 a.m.–7 p.m. · cinderellabakery.com
Been somewhere we should cover? Tell us in the comments or send an email to saul@thebolditalic.com
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